Rural South-West Oxford

Rural South-West Oxford covers almost all of the township: about 36,300 hectares of farmland from the Thames River south to the Elgin and Norfolk county lines, between Ingersoll and Tillsonburg. Sweaburg, Salford and Brownsville are small villages, and Centreville, Culloden, Delmer, Dereham Centre, Foldens, Ostrander, Verschoyle and Zenda are hamlets among the farms. Trillium Woods Provincial Nature Reserve is known for its spring wildflowers, and Centreville Pond has wooded walking trails, a pond and a dam.

South-West Oxford was formed in 1975 from Dereham and West Oxford townships and the Village of Beachville. Dereham was once thousands of acres of swamp and marsh, and large drainage projects made it the farmland it is today. The township had 7,583 people in 2021.

The 2021 census counted 2,616 homes in South-West Oxford. Leaving out Mount Elgin and Beachville, the countryside, its villages and its hamlets had about 2,130 homes, more than nine in ten of them single detached houses. About four in ten were built in 1960 or earlier and about a quarter between 1961 and 1980. About one in five were built between 1981 and 2000, and about one in ten in 2001 or later.

Highway 401 runs across the north of the township, and Highway 19 runs from Ingersoll south through Salford and Mount Elgin to Tillsonburg. County roads and lines link the farms with Ingersoll, Woodstock and Tillsonburg.

Brownsville Park, beside the Brownsville Community Complex, has a roofed pavilion, a timber gazebo built in 2024 and a tennis court converted for pickleball, and Brownsville has its own library branch. Foldens Park has two ball diamonds beside the Foldens (West Oxford) Hall, Dereham Centre Park has an accessible playground across from Dereham Centre Hall, and Centreville Pond has trails through the woods, a pond and a dam. Trillium Woods Provincial Nature Reserve protects a wildflower woods with five colour variations of the white trillium.

• Harrisfield Public School — JK to Grade 8. The public school for the middle of the township, including Salford and Foldens, in Ingersoll.
• East Oxford Public School — JK to Grade 8. The public school for the north-east, including Sweaburg, on Old Stage Road.
• Westfield Public School and South Ridge Public School — JK to Grade 8. The public schools for the south, near Tillsonburg, including Brownsville, in Tillsonburg.
• Ingersoll District Collegiate Institute — Grades 9 to 12. The public secondary school for the middle of the township, on Alma Street in Ingersoll.
• College Avenue Secondary School and Glendale High School — Grades 9 to 12. The public secondary schools for Sweaburg (College Avenue, in Woodstock) and for the south (Glendale, in Tillsonburg).
• Oliver Stephens Public School — Grades 1 to 8 in French immersion. The public French immersion school for the township, on Fyfe Avenue in Woodstock; it also has an English program.
• St. Jude's Catholic School — JK to Grade 8. The Catholic elementary school for the middle of the township, on Caffyn Street in Ingersoll.
• St. Patrick's Catholic School and St. Joseph's Catholic School — JK to Grade 8 and JK to Grade 4. The Catholic elementary schools for Sweaburg (St. Patrick's, in Woodstock) and for the south (St. Joseph's, in Tillsonburg).
• Holy Family French Immersion Catholic School — SK to Grade 8 in French immersion. The Catholic French immersion school for all of Oxford, on Oxford Street in Woodstock.
• St. Mary's Catholic High School — Grades 9 to 12. The Catholic secondary school for the township, on Juliana Drive in Woodstock.
• Woodstock Collegiate Institute — Grades 9 to 12. Thames Valley's public French immersion secondary school, on Riddell Street in Woodstock.